the spiritual nature of man, in virtue of which he had an intuitive
knowledge of God as a being, infinite and absolute in power, wisdom and
goodness; a direct perception like that which the senses have of
material objects; a perception that gains in distinctness, clearness and
positiveness as the faculties through which it is obtained increase in
power and delicacy. To the human mind, by its original constitution,
belongs the firm assurance of God's existence, as a half latent fact of
consciousness, and with it a dim sense of his moral attributes. To minds
capacious and sensitive the truth was disclosed in lofty ranges that
lifted the horizon line, in every direction, above the cloud land of
doubt; to minds cultivated, earnest, devout, aspiring, the revelation
came in bursts of glory. The experiences of inspired men and women were
repeated. The prophet, the seer, the saint, was no longer a favored
person whose sayings and doings were recorded in the Bible, but a living
person, making manifest the wealth of soul in all human beings.
Communication with the ideal world was again opened through conscience;
and communion with God, close and tender as is anywhere described by
devotees and mystics, was promised to the religious affections.
The Transcendentalist spoke of God with authority. His God was not
possible, but real; not probable, but certain. In his high confidence he
had small respect for the labored reasonings of "Natural Religion;" the
argument from design, so carefully elaborated by Paley, Brougham and the
writers of the "Bridgewater Treatises," was interesting and useful as
far as it went, but was remanded to an inferior place. The demonstration
from miracle was dismissed with feelings bordering on contempt, as
illogical and childish.
Taking his faith with him into the world of nature and of human life,
the Transcendentalist, sure of the divine wisdom and love, found
everywhere joy for mourning and beauty for ashes. Passing through the
valley of Baca, he saw springs bubbling up from the sand, and making
pools for thirsty souls. Wherever he came, garments of heaviness were
dropped and robes of praise put on. Evil was but the prophecy of good,
wrong the servant of right, pain the precursor of peace, sorrow the
minister to joy. He would acknowledge no exception to the rule of an
absolute justice and an inexorable love. It was certain that all was
well, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. He was, as we have
said, an optimist--not of the indifferent sort that make the maxim
"Whatever is, is right" an excuse for idleness--but of the heroic kind
who, by refreshing their minds with thoughts of the absolute goodness,
keep alive their faith, hope, endeavor, and quicken themselves to
efforts at understanding, interpreting and bringing to the surface the
divine attributes. For himself he had no misgivings, and no alarm at the
misgivings of others; believing them due, either to some
misunderstanding that might be corrected, or to some moral defect that
could be cured. Even Atheism, of the crudest, coarsest, most stubborn
description, had no terrors for him. It was in his judgment a matter of
definition mainly. Utter atheism was all but inconceivable to him; the
essential faith in divine things under some form of mental perception
being too deeply planted in human nature to be eradicated or buried.
Taking his belief with him into the world of history, the
Transcendentalist discovered the faith in God beneath all errors,
delusions, idolatries and superstition. He read it into unintelligible
scriptures; he drew it forth from obsolete symbols; he dragged it to the
light from the darkness of hateful shrines and the bloody mire of pagan
altars. Mr. Parker meditated a work on the religious history of mankind,
in which the development of the theistic idea was to be traced from its
shadowy beginnings to its full maturity; and this he meant should be the
crowning work of his life. Sure of his first principle, he had no
hesitation in going into caves and among the ruins of temples. Had that
work been completed, the Transcendentalist's faith in God would have
received its most eloquent statement.
The other cardinal doctrine of religion--the immortality of the
soul,--Transcendentalism was proud of having rescued from death in the
same way. The philosophy of sensation could give no assurance of
personal immortality. Here, too, its fundamental axiom, "_Nihil in
intellectu quod non prius in sensu_," was discouraging to belief. For
immortality is not demonstrable to the senses. Experience affords no
basis for conviction, and knowledge cannot on any pretext be claimed.
The sensational school was divided into two parties. The first party
confessed that the immortality of the soul was a thing not only
unprovable, but a thing easily disproved, a thing improbable, and, to a
clear mind, impossible to believe. The soul being a product of
organization, at all events fatally implicated in organization,
conditioned by it in all respects, must perish with organization, as the
flower perishes with the stem. Of a spirit distinct from body there is,
according to this school, no evidence, either before death or after.
Man's prospect, therefore, is bounded by this life. Dreamers may have
visions of another; mourners may sigh for another; ardent natures may
hope for another; but to believe in another is, to the rational mind,
according to this philosophy, impossible. The sentence "dust thou art,
and to dust thou shalt return," may seem a hard one; but as it cannot be
reversed or modified, it must be accepted with submission; and in
default of another life, the honest man will make the most of the life
he has; not necessarily saying with the sensualist: "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die;" but with the hero reminding himself that
he must "Work while it is day, for the night cometh in which no man can
work." The modern disciples of this doctrine of annihilation speak in a
tone of lofty courage of their destiny, and disguise under shining and
many-colored garments of anticipation, the fact of their personal
cessation. The thinkers find refuge in the intellectual problems of the
present; the workers pile up monuments that shall endure when they are
gone; poets like George Eliot, make grand music on the harp-strings of
the common humanity; but the fact remains that the philosophy of
experience abandons, or did before the advent of spiritualism--the
expectation of an existence after death.
The other branch of the Sensational school fell back on authority, and
received on the tradition of history what could not be verified by
science. Immortality was accepted as a doctrine of instituted religion,
taken on the credit of revelation, and sealed by the resurrection of
Jesus. As an article of faith it was accepted without comment. If we
have not seen the glorified dead, others have, and their witness is
recorded in the Scriptures. Beyond that believers did not care to go;
beyond that advised no one else to go. To question the genuineness of
the Scriptures, to cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus, to intimate
that the tradition of the church is a thin stream that murmurs
pleasantly in the shade of the sacred groves, but would dry up if the
sun-light were let in, was resented as an offence against reverence and
morality. By such as these the belief that slipped away from the reason
was detained by the will.
But beliefs thus appropriated are insecurely held. The inactivity of the
mind cannot be guaranteed; a slight disturbance of its tamely
acquiescent condition may set its whole scheme of opinions afloat. A
sentence on a printed page, a word let fall in conversation, a
discovered fact, an awakened suspicion, a suggestion of doubt by a
friend, may stir the thought whose movement will bring the whole
structure down. There being no certainty, only arbitrary content; no
personal conviction, only formal acquiescence; there was nothing to
prevent the belief from disappearing altogether, and leaving the mind
vacant.
Even when retained, beliefs thus held have no vitality. They are not
living faiths in any intelligent sense. Useful they may be for pulpit
declamation and closet discussion; serviceable on funeral occasions and
in chambers of sorrow; available for purposes of moral impression; but
inspiring they are not; actively sustaining and consoling they are not.
Their effect on the conduct of life is almost imperceptible. They are
appendages to the mind, not parts of it; proprieties, not properties.
They are to be reckoned as part of a man's stock in trade, not as part
of his being.
Transcendentalism, by taking the belief in immortality out of these
incidental and doubtful associations, and making it a constituent
element in the constitution of the mind itself, thought to rescue it
from its precarious position, and place it beyond the reach of danger.
No belief was, on the whole, so characteristic of Transcendentalism as
this; none was so steadfastly assumed, so constantly borne in view.
Immortality was here a postulate, a first principle. Theodore Parker
called it a fact of consciousness--the intensity of his conviction
rendering him careless of precision in speech. The writings of Emerson
are redolent of the faith. Even when he argues in his way against the
accepted creed, and casts doubt on every form in which the doctrine is
entertained, the loftiness of his language about the soul carries the
presage of immortality with it. The "Dial" has no argument about
immortality; no paper in the whole series is devoted to the subject; the
faith was too deep and essential to be talked about--it was assumed. The
Transcendentalist was an enthusiast on this article. He spoke, not as
one who surmises, conjectures, is on the whole inclined to think; but as
one who knows beyond cavil or question. We never met a man whose
assurance of immortality was as strong as Theodore Parker's. The
objections of materialists did not in the least disturb him. In the
company of the most absolute of them he avowed his conviction. What
others clung to as supports--the church tradition, the story of the
raising of Lazarus, the account of the resurrection of Jesus--were to
him stumbling blocks in the way of spiritual faith, for they drew
attention away from the witness of the soul.
The preaching of Transcendentalists caused, in all parts of the
country, a revival of interest and of faith in personal immortality;
spiritualized the idea of it; enlarged the scope of the belief, and
ennobled its character; established an organic connection between the
present life and the future, making them both one in substance;
disabused people of the coarse notion that the next life was an incident
of their experience, and compelled them to think of it as a normal
extension of their being; substituted aspiration after spiritual
deliverance and perfection, for hope of happiness and fear of misery;
recalled attention to the nature and capacity of the soul itself; in a
word, announced the natural immortality of the soul by virtue of its
essential quality. The fanciful reasoning of Plato's "_Phaedon_" was
supplemented by new readings in psychology, and strengthened by powerful
moral supports; the highest desires, the purest feelings, the deepest
sympathies, were enlisted in its cause; death was made incidental to
life; lower life was made subordinate to higher; and men who were
beginning to doubt whether the demand for personal immortality was
entirely honorable in one who utterly trusted in God, thoroughly
appreciated the actual world, and fairly respected his own dignity, were
reassured by a faith which promised felicity on terms that compromised
neither reason nor virtue. The very persons who had let go the hope of
immortality because they could not accept it at the cost of sacrificing
their confidence in God's instant justice, were glad to recover it as a
promise of fulfilment to their dearest desire for spiritual expansion.
The Sensational philosophy had done a worse harm to the belief in
immortality, than by rendering the prospect of it uncertain; it had
rendered the character of it pusillanimous and plebeian; it had demanded
it on the ground that God must explain himself, must correct his
blunders and apologize for his partiality in distributing sugar plums;
it had argued for it from personal, social, sectarian, and other
sympathies and antipathies; it had expected it on the strength of a
rumor that a specially holy man, a saint of Judea, had appeared after
death to his peculiar friends; it had pleaded for it, as children beg
for dessert after bread and meat. The transcendental philosophy
dismissed these unworthy claims, made no demand, put up no petition, but
simply made articulate the prophecy of the spiritual nature in man, and
trusted the eternal goodness for its fulfilment. Other arguments might
come to the support of this anticipation; history might bring its
contribution of recorded facts; suffering and sorrow might add their
pathetic voices, bewailing the oppressive power of circumstance, and
crying for peace out of affliction; the biographies of Jesus might
furnish illustration of the victory of the greatest souls over death;
but considerations of this kind received their importance from the light
they threw on the immortal attributes of spirit. Apart from these their
significance was gone.
The pure Transcendentalists saw everywhere evidence of the greatness of
the soul. Christianity they regarded as its chief manifestation.
Imperfect Transcendentalists there were, who used the fundamental
postulates of the transcendental philosophy to confirm their faith in
supernatural realities. Their Transcendentalism amounted merely to
this, that man had a natural capacity for _receiving_ supernatural
truths, when presented by revelation. The _possession_ of such truths,
even in germ; the power to unfold them naturally, by process of mental
or spiritual growth; the faculty to seize, define, shape, legitimate and
enthrone them, they denied. The soul, according to them, was recipient,
not originating or creative. They continued to be Christians of the
"Evangelical" stamp; champions of special intervention of light and
grace; hearty believers in the divinity of the Christ and the saving
influence of the Holy Ghost; holding to the peculiar inspiration of the
Bible, and the personal need of regeneration. The wisest teachers of
orthodoxy belonged to this school.
The pure Transcendentalist went much further. According to him, the
seeds of truth, if not the outline forms of truth, were contained in the
soul itself, all ready to expand in bloom and beauty, as it felt the
light and heat of the upper world. Sir Kenelm Digby relates that in
Padua he visited the laboratory of a famous physician, and was there
shown a small pile of fine ashes under a glass. On the application of a
gentle heat, it arose, assumed the shape of its original flower, all its
parts being perfectly distinct in form and well defined in character.
During the application of the heat, the spectral plant preserved its
delicate outline; but on withdrawal of the heat, it became dust again.
So, according to the Transcendentalist, the spiritual being of
man--which apparently is a heap of lifeless ashes on the surface of
material existence--when graciously shone upon by knowledge and love,
puts on divine attributes, glows with beauty, palpitates with joy, gives
out flashes of power, distils odors of sanctity, and exhibits the marks
of a celestial grace. The soul, when thus awakened, utters oracles of
wisdom, sings, prophesies, thunders decalogues, pronounces beatitudes,
discourses grandly of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing
on sick bodies and wandering minds, rises to heights of heroism and
saintliness.
From this point of vision, it was easy to survey the history of mankind,
and, in the various religions of the world, see the efforts of the soul
to express itself in scriptures, emblems, doctrines, altar forms,
architecture, painting, moods and demonstrations of piety. The
Transcendentalist rendered full justice to all these, studied them,
admired them, confessed their inspiration. Of these faiths Christianity
was cheerfully acknowledged to be the queen. The supremacy of Jesus was
granted with enthusiasm. His teachings were accepted as the purest
expressions of religious truth; His miracles were regarded as the
natural achievements of a soul of such originality and force. In his
address to the senior class in Divinity College, 1838, Mr. Emerson spoke
of Christ's miracles as being "one with the blowing clover and the
falling rain," and urged the young candidates for the ministry to let
his life and dialogues "lie as they befel, active and warm, part of
human life, and of the landscape, and of the cheerful day." When, in
1840, Theodore Parker wrote his "Levi Blodgett" letter, he believed in
miracles, the miracles of the New Testament and many others besides,
more than the Christians about him were willing to accept.
"It may be said these religious teachers (Zoroaster, Buddha, Fo)
pretended to work miracles. I would not deny that they _did_ work
miracles. If a man is obedient to the law of his mind, conscience
and heart, since his intellect, character and affections are in
harmony with the laws of God, I take it he can do works that are
impossible to others, who have not been so faithful, and
consequently are not "one with God" as he is; and this is all that
is meant by a miracle." "The possession of this miraculous power,
when it can be proved, as I look at the thing, is only a _sign_,
which may be uncertain, of the superior genius of a religious
teacher, or a _sign_ that he will utter the truth, and never a
_proof_ thereof."
The Transcendentalist was a cordial believer in marvels, as being so
hearty a believer in the potency of the spiritual laws. Parker's
opposition to the miracles of the New Testament was provoked by the
exclusive claim that was put forward by their defenders, and by the
position they were thrust into as pillars of doctrine. His wish to make
it appear that truth could stand without them, impelled him to strain at
their overthrow. Later, his studies in New Testament criticism confirmed
his suspicion that the testimony in their favor was altogether
inadequate to sustain their credibility. The theory of Bauer and his
disciples of the Tuebingen school seemed to him unanswerable, and he
abandoned, as a scholar, much that as a Transcendentalist he might have
been disposed to retain. W. H. Furness, author of several biographical
studies on the life and character of Jesus--a Transcendentalist
of the most impassioned school, but no adept in historical
criticism--maintained to the last the credibility of the Christian
miracles, and purely on the ground of their perfect naturalness as
performed by a person so spiritually exalted as Jesus was. The more
ardent his admiration of that character, the more unshrinking his belief
in these manifestations of its superiority. Dr. Furness is prepared to
think that if no miracles had been recorded, nevertheless miracles must
have been wrought, and would, but for some blindness or skepticism, have
been mentioned.
The charge that Transcendentalism denied the reality of supernatural
powers and influences shows how imperfectly it was apprehended. It
seemed to deny them because it transferred them to another sphere. It
regarded man himself as a supernatural being; not the last product of
nature, but the lord of nature; not the _creature_ of organization, but
its creator. In its extreme form, Transcendentalism was a deification of
nature, in the highest aspects of Beauty. It raised human qualities to
the supreme power; it ascribed to extraordinary virtue in its exalted
states the efficient grace that is commonly attributed to the Holy
Spirit. The pure Transcendentalist spoke of the experiences and powers
of the illuminated soul with as much extravagance of rapture as one of
the newly redeemed ever expressed. The profane made sport of his
fanaticisms and fervors in the same way that they made sport of the wild
over-gush of a revival meeting. The demonstrations of feeling were in
fact, precisely similar; only in the one case the excitement was traced
to the Christ in the skies, in the other to the Christ who was the soul
of the man; in the one case a superhuman being was imagined as operating
on the soul; in the other case the soul was supposed to be giving
expression to itself.
The Transcendentalist was not careful enough in making this distinction,
and was, therefore, to blame for a portion of the misapprehension that
ensued. He often found in sacred literature, thoughts which he himself
put there. Parker, discoursing of inspiration, cites Paul and John as
holding the same doctrine with himself; though it is plain to the single
mind that their doctrine was in no respect the same, but so different as
to be in contradiction. Paul and John, it is hardly too much to say, set
up their doctrine in precise opposition to the doctrine of the
Transcendentalists. Paul declared that the natural man could _not_
discern divine things; that they were foolishness to him; that they must
be spiritually discerned; that the Christian was able to discern them
spiritually _because he had_ the "mind of Christ." The eighth chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans contains sentences that, taken singly, apart
from their connection, comfort the cockles of the transcendental heart;
but the writer is glorifying Christ the inspirer; not the soul he
inspired. He opens the chapter with the affirmation that "there is no
condemnation to them which are in CHRIST JESUS, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit," and follows it with the saying that "if
any man have not the _Spirit of Christ_, he is none of his." This is
the spirit that "quickens mortal bodies," that makes believers to be
"Sons of God," giving them the spirit of adoption whereby they cry
"Abba, Father," bearing witness with their spirit that they are "the
children of God." This is the spirit that "helpeth our infirmities," and
"maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered."
Transcendentalism deliberately broke with Christianity. Paul said "other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Transcendentalism responded: "Jesus Christ built on my foundation, the
soul;" and, for thus answering, was classed with those who used as
building materials "wood, hay, stubble," which the fire would consume.
In the view of Transcendentalism, Christianity was an illustrious form
of natural religion--Jesus was a noble type of human nature; revelation
was disclosure of the soul's mystery; inspiration was the filling of the
soul's lungs; salvation was spiritual vitality.
Transcendentalism carried its appeal to metaphysics. At present physics
have the floor. Our recent studies have been in the natural history of
the soul. Its spiritual history is discredited. But the human mind ebbs
and flows. The Bains and Spencers and Taines may presently give place to
other prophets; psychology may come to the front again, and with it will
reappear the sages and seers. In that event, the religion of
Transcendentalism will revive, and will have a long and fair day.